Chris Rurik, KP Naturalist

Since being asked to adapt a chapter of a book he wrote on his great-grandfather’s farm into an article on how newts see the world, his “Into the Wild” columns have been a KP News mainstay.

Chris and his family live on that very farm. In addition to freelance writing and helping manage farm operations, he is a community naturalist-at-large. He cut his teeth at Stanford’s Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve and Hopkins Marine Station and for six years worked with students as an environmental educator at Bluff Lake Nature Center in Denver.

A hardcore birder and casual cyclist, he loves the thrill of finding a rare bird on the KP, especially when he finds it carbon-free. Writing projects have taken him from the Oregon Coast’s new marine reserves to Nunivak Island in Alaska. He is on the board of the Prince William Sound Science Center.

The daily discipline of paying attention to wild creatures and how they move through the landscape is Chris’s meditation and inspiration. He loves to tromp around the KP — its crown jewel parks as well as its roadside thickets — and think about how habitats connect through all types of land. He thinks the KP has all the ingredients needed to grow its reputation as one of the Puget Sound’s iconic landscapes.